MungoChutney

Although it's not set at Christmas, The Royle Family: The Queen of Sheba that aired as a Christmas special is sensational. Incredibly written, straddling the line between sadness and humour that surrounds bereavement. Such an amazing cast they had for that show in general but they're all at top, top form here. 

I think that may be haggis rather than white pudding. That and the addition of tattie scones really makes this a full Scottish as opposed to a full English. Lack of square sausage possibly keeps that open for debate though.

My nephew and his husband have just adopted and are hosting this year so the little guy can be in his own house for the day. Quite looking forward to it as my son will also be there and I usually get him after dinner, but he'll join us for the whole day this time. My mum has had a rough few years health wise and is also really looking forward to it, which is nice. 

I'm not usually big on the whole new year, new me bollocks but I'm moving to a seconded post for two years when I go back in January. It's looking like a great chance for professional development with a much, much better work life balance. So all in all quite a positive time for me, although I'm really conscious, much more so than my usual Catholic guilt, that a lot of people are really struggling at the moment. 

14 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

Well, I’m sure life is about to improve for a lot of people. Fucking hell. 

 

This and Braverman coming back as Home Sec shows that nothing has really changed. Britain is a right wing country.

Sunak will seem better with numbers but we all know when a Tory is good with numbers it means the poor get poorer. 

That's horrible for you @scratchdj, hopefully small signs of recovery are a positive for you both.

I'm really grateful to be a reasonably healthy person getting this and having had three vaccines to this point. It's still the worst I've ever had for a cold or flu, the headaches and random dry coughing are like nothing else I've experienced. That said, in the grand scheme I'm doing ok and will probably be fine to work from home on a day or two. 

My isolation is up Wednesday but I'm going to avoid indoor spaces for an additional five days if I can. My mum too as she's 77 and has coped with chronic heart failure, pneumonia and pleurisy over the last few years. Quite worried by the seemingly increasing numbers of elderly now becoming more unwell with it again.

Two and a half years later it finally got me. I've had a cough for about two weeks, testing negative. Then my son was positive this week and last night was the absolute worst I've ever felt with cold and flu stuff. No surprise I was positive this morning. 

I'm still a bit unsure about how well we'll adjust to Champions League football. Domestically excellent but I have less confidence in Hart and the back 4 against elite forwards.  That said, Ange deserves the trust and it was interesting to hear him say he expects Europe to be a gradual process.

Just watched the highlights again there. Rangers were fortunate it stayed at 4 nil. Celtic's recruitment has been excellent and it showed. Four year contract for Goldson is an extra gift too. 

I was really impressed with Aaron Mooy last night. Thought he was very composed. Not as dynamic as McGregor when he plays in the 6 role but very tidy on the ball and kept the pace of the game moving. 

I think it's less about Jota's positioning than how close he was to being level with the ball though. It's hard for the assistant because he has to assess that as well as the position of the second last defender.

VAR will work I think and will surprise people by how well it does. Our top referees have pushed for it because they know they won't get high level international appointments without it. For that very reason I expect them to deploy it effectively and consistently like other UEFA countries are doing. 

I'm not sure either of those really qualify as shocking to be honest. The offside is actually quite marginal and VAR is there to address those ones. With his positioning, no real issue there, it's not his job to get out the players way, he has to be focused on the position he wants to take up. That said, I'd agree McLean has had his time at this level, missing a red card and showing the completely wrong player a yellow last season should have been it for him and top level games.

The decision in the Rangers Vs Ross County game WAS shocking. No bias or any conspiracy theory at play, just an awful call. 

Yep, that's exactly it @air_raidbut I stand by the view that if you don't understand one of the most fundamental laws then you shouldn't comment on refereeing decisions. Having said that, I'm not sure how MOTD or Sky would fill the studio if that was applied. 

8 hours ago, seph said:

When was the last time an offisde has been called on a sideways or backward pass? I actually can't remember.

 

It's fairly rare but Rangers second goal at Vs St Johnstone last weekend was an example albeit the goal stood when it shouldn't have. 

I don't think the standard of refereeing has declined so much as it's now more visible due to enhanced television coverage. The infrastructure in Scotland is shockingly bad at bringing through referees to the top level. I've read similar comments today from English grassroots referees on the back of Pearson's comments.

It doesn't help that people genuinely believe a referee can be biased against their team or purposely cheat them out of a win. That's stoked up by media coverage and the style of football reporters we have. Just this weekend I've seen people with a sizeable social media following claiming the ball has to be played forward for a player to be offside. Being so fundamentally incorrect should automatically bar you from holding any opinion on referees to be honest. 

What a thread. The PlayStation one has always been far more than just any old console. It marked the start of the console being the deciding factor of whether kids were 'in' or 'out'. I don't think the previous generation of consoles had that same societal influence as what defined being cool or uncool changed month to month depending on the current action figure/collectables (Pogs!). When the PlayStation came along it changed that and any kid, like me, who didn't have one was automatically 'out'.

Its wider appeal can be seen in the fact it was heavily merchandised and sponsored the big launcher ride at Blackpool Pleasure beach, which is now the Tango IceBlast I think.

When I did eventually get one I played all the classics to death and played every WWF and WCW game to get everything unlocked with no cheats. The PS One is also where I discovered PES. I remember complaining to a friend that FIFA 99 was starting to feel less liked a game of football and more arcade based. He said 'try PES. The names are fake but the game is class'. As soon as I played the first one I was hooked and lost weeks of my life to the games well into adulthood.

PES was also the first game I bought from a stall at the Barras market in Glasgow where the guy had a huge list that your ordered from and then he got someone to meet you outside to hand them over like a class A drug. His list also had bold print saying he offered a copying service only and you agreed you already owned the original. Not sure that actually changed the legality but he certainly thought it did.  My PS One wasn't fully chipped either so it involved putting the extra spring in the lid and then loading a normal game before ejecting and inserting the copied disc. 

This thread has been superb reading and I'm now seriously considering heading to CeX to buy one.

They'll need either a lot of recruitment or a miracle of coaching to make the top 6.  Martinez looked a bit shaky but will be good for them over time. Not sure how you solve the problem of having to play the likes of Fred, McTominay and Maguire though. Garner is a possible option at number 6 but there doesn't seem to be any real depth elsewhere. 

6 hours ago, Daaaaaad! said:

Well @SpiritOfTheForest’s prediction of Motherwell hiring John Hughes won’t be coming true… because he’s dead ☹️

Not sure what the short illness was at this point, but still terribly sad news. RIP.

I can't be sure so thought I'd ask: you know this is a different John Hughes, yeah? 

Great post @SpiritOfTheForest. I echo the view on the name of the thread, wouldn't necessarily mind a comical name but the way jock and porridge wog has been thrown about on this forum also makes me uncomfortable.

I think Celtic will have enough to win the league again. The squad for yesterday's game was strong with good replacements for each position. Not sure Mooy is what is needed and would still like to add a holding midfielder but Ange has bought really well so far and earns the right of patience.

Matondo looks a good signing and I'm hoping that despite his pace he'll find similar issues to Kent where, in domestic games, the low block nullifies much of the bursts of pace. 

This is horrible. My mum almost fell for the Amazon Prime scam. She's been out a lot less in the last couple of years with Covid and illness so really relies on her Kindle. If I hadn't arrived at her house while she was on the phone she'd have given them her card details. 

I think if it's a scam, particularly a well known one, the bank will do what they can to recover and ultimately refund the money even if they can't pull it back. 

I think the episodes being longer and with more padding was needed this time to let us catch up with each group. Next season won't need to do that you'd think and I think I read they intended a feature length finale but shorter episodes overall. 

A time jump has been one of those things mentioned or hinted at but it could be for an epilogue rather than the whole season I reckon. 

9 minutes ago, chokeout said:

I’m sure Trump would happily roll out the ‘my very good friend Boris’ line but when you remember his greatest hits are funding for the NHS (well talking about it at least) and rolling out the  vaccine combined with him being posh he’d be fucked in front of a pro trump crowd. He’ll just collect millions sitting on the boards of drugs companies as he uses his connection to get them slices of the NHS

I think he's fairly popular with the pro-Trump crowd actually. My sister has American in-laws who are East coast Republicans and they think he's great. Not all Trump fans are anti-vax types either. He had a much wider appeal than that, as would Johnson in that arena. I don't doubt for a second he'd get them to believe he was on their side and he'd quite happily flip on the NHS and talk about the work he'd done to help private companies in. 

One of his last acts as PM appears to have been to formally refuse the request for a referendum. Straight off the bat the successor can now be shown to be aligned with him if they take the same line. 

I'd been wondering if this was worth having sing there was some chat in the telly thread and then saw Chest wanted an individual thread so as to avoid spoilers.

Anyway, season 4 was great on the whole I thought. I did wonder if the finale was going to be underwhelming until the last hour became an absolute rollercoaster. 

Headline thoughts coming out of it for me:

-Max is alive but somehow trapped within Vecna's mind.

-Brenner survived. He's the only one who can really make sure El knows what is needed to finally defeat Vecna.

-Next season will see Hawkins under quarantine with everyone evacuated. The good guys will need to break in so they can defeat Vecna, it all begins and ends at the lab.

-Eddie is definitely dead. The town will find out he died to save them though. The Duffer Brothers knew exactly what they were doing and how people would react to a popular single season character death like with Bob. 

2024 seems to be the date for the fifth and final season. Already counting down the days.

When he goes I fully expect Johnson to very quickly settle into right wing media, potentially in the States.  He'll go down a storm at Republican rallies. Farage done very well out of that and he had nothing to really build it on. In their eyes Boris Johnson will be the man who stood up to both the EU and Putin. Matching red hats on order for him and Trump.